How Important Is Video for SEO

If you’ve learned anything about SEO practices and how to get your site ranked higher, you know that content marketing is key to doing so. Adding video to your content can be a great way to boost your SEO because it has a significant impact on brand awareness.

The results of a study of 1,000 U.S. consumers conducted by the company Animoto, revealed that:

73% said that they are more likely to purchase a product or service if they can watch a video explaining it beforehand

93% find video helpful in comparison shopping

87% find video helpful for researching additional items from the same brand

93% find video helpful for instructions post-purchase

71% agree watching video content produced by businesses leaves them with a positive impression of a brand/service/company

64% find it helpful to watch videos to learn more about the company they will purchase from

58% consider companies that produce video content to be more trustworthy

Great content is a necessary element to SEO statistics, but based on the percentages of consumers in this study, videos cannot be ignored as a factor.

5 Ways Video Can Boost Your SEO

1. Google Likes Video Content.

The king of search engines checks more than just keywords. It also checks other media you offer to users. Combining text, images and video will give Google the warm and fuzzy that your content is more interesting. And with the use of video increasing exponentially (projected at 80% by 2019, according to Cisco), Google wants to keep up.

To get the most SEO benefit out of your video, you’ll want to make sure it’s optimized. Including some good keywords in the video’s meta tags will help.

2. Video Can Drive Traffic to Your Site.

Did you know that YouTube has over 1 billion users (more than 1/3 of the internet)??!! YouTube is a great way to get your brand noticed. Make sure you include your URLs in the channel name and video descriptions to get the most traffic and improve rankings.

Using YouTube to host your videos instead of including them on your own site can work in your favor, since videos can tend to slow down site speed. You can simply embed the link on your site instead. Plus, having your video on YouTube can take advantage of their large audience.

3. Videos Earn Links.

The URLs embedded in your video descriptions can get you referral traffic. Video content on your website helps your link-building strategy because people like to share unique and interesting videos, thereby generating links to your site. This remains true whether the video is hosted on YouTube or your own site.

Even if people don’t link to your website from the video, you can still build awareness of your brand if you brand your videos. You can accomplish this by including a short title card or end card with your logo and website, or you could add a small watermark on the video itself.

4. Video Helps Your Social Presence.

Did you know that an including a video instead of a photo on Facebook will get you 135% more engagement? And video views on Snapchat have increased from less than 2 billion per day in 2014 to 10 billion as of 2016. Social media users simply love videos and they are more apt to share them with others.

Even though this activity doesn’t directly impact search engine rankings, it can have an indirect impact because of the more shares, the higher the search rankings.

5. Video Can Improve Your Conversions.

According to Hubspot, shoppers are twice as likely to purchase after watching a video of your products. And even before visiting a brick and mortar retail establishment, shoppers will search for online videos first.

Including video as part of your SEO strategy can be very effective. Colorado Springs SEO for Growth can help you build that strategy. We can assist you in establishing an online presence that captures customers’ interest, is ranked highly by search engines, generates leads and gets you found online.

Colorado Springs SEO for Growth can help you improve your SEO with a plan that works for your business. Contact us today to learn more!